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Mustard Yellow Van
I keep a picture of my father close at hand.
to remind me that he was once a man as i want to be.
He waves to the camera from a mustard yellow van
his still hand in a permanent pose of burdenless life
I cannot see his eyes, they are covered by plastic shaded lenses,
but i know underneath, they are full of joy.
In my waking life i have no memory of those eyes,
i have never seen the wave firsthand.
Neither have i ever seen or heard of the mustard yellow van
nor do i know on what adventures it took them.
I know that fear took the place of joy when they divorced,
and since he has never taken off those shaded plastic lenses.
He is someone else now, someone colder and more serious,
lest he let himself go and things go bad again.
Perhaps someday he will take them off and wave to me,
and the image will no longer be still, but moving and alive.
I keep a picture of my father near at hand,
to remind me that he was once a man as i want to be.
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| Honestly, I'm a bit confused. The title is about a mustard yellow van yet you describe your father's appearance. I think what you should do is keep ALL of your focus on the van instead of the person who drives it. Other than that, the poem was very well written and creative. |
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Comment by: Breathe - 2008-01-13 15:37
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| I don't wish to cheapen it through words. I'll just say, while i don't see it as a published piece, you should be very proud of it as a personal one. |
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This poem was okay. What I like are the first three stanzas. Very powerful, they hold a lot and give the reader a vivid picture, or maybe even a home movie-esque type of experience. I see that yellow mustard van; and that is brilliant how you so simply create that image in the reader's mind without superfluous detail or pretentious descriptions. Very nice indeed. I also like the happy image you attribute to your father's pose by the van, and how he may have been having a terrible day that day, but since there are shaded sunglasses over his eyes you, the viewer, are afforded the luxury of imagining and creating whatever you want. That is powerful to me. But at the second line of the fourth stanza is where the poem loses its steam, at least in my humble opinion. It gets too sentimental, and overdramatic. I've heard it before, and now the yellow van loses its mysterious quality as it is mentioned again. Like you creating your father's happiness behind those shades, I, as the reader, want to do a bit of creating as well. Therefore, I think the poem would be more powerful if more was left to the reader's imagination. If you could hint at divorce, if you could subtly say that things might not be so good, or that there is more to come in this man's life, as he stands, stuck in time beside a yellow van. Anyway, just a big suggestion.
Another thing would be the repeating of the first stanza as the last stanza. I think you should cut that. It does not create a dramatic effect, but takes away from the one the poem starts off having.
John Keats has a poem called, "Ode on a Grecian Urn". In that poem he writes of two lovers frozen in time because they are stuck on the side of that urn, and neither of them can ever touch each other, but are tortured instead by having all of eternity to stare longingly at each other. You should give it a read. Your poem reminded me of that a bit. Just an idea.
Nice poem, a very powerful start for sure. |
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| well done. You successfully captured feelings/thoughts of a child of divorce. This is good work, keep up the excellence. |
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| very honest....you have talent... |
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